Impact-based forecasting of river floods in a Peruvian Andean-Amazonian basin: first results in the Madre de Dios River, Peru.

Impact-based forecasting (IBF) represents a significant advance in disaster risk management when considering the vulnerabilities of the population, livelihoods and exposed assets. In this paper we present the scaling up of PANDORA, an IBF tool developed for the Andean-Amazonian region of Peru, using the Madre de Dios River (MDR) as a case study. This initiative is in the framework of the BID Project: Hydrological and hydrodynamic monitoring and forecasting system for river floods in the Andean-Amazonian region of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
PANDORA integrates a large-scale hydrological-hydrodynamic model (MGB) with precipitation forecasts, generating probabilistic flow projections with a five-day horizon. These forecasts are contrasted with flood thresholds associated with return periods of 2, 5 and 10 years, corresponding to moderate, severe and extreme levels of severity, respectively. 
The intersection between the potentially flooded areas and the exposed elements (population, educational and health centres, transport routes and agricultural areas) allows us to estimate impacts at different political and administrative levels. Given the limited availability of hydrometeorological data in the MDR region, altimetry satellite information was incorporated to improve the performance and validation of the MGB model. The system was evaluated against the flood event recorded in February 2021, obtaining satisfactory results despite the limitations identified. Overall, PANDORA shows a high potential to support local decision-making in flood risk management using IBF.